ASP.NET Core Middleware

In this article

Middleware is software that's assembled into an app pipeline to handle requests and responses. Each component:

Chooses whether to pass the request to the next component in the pipeline.

Can perform work before and after the next component in the pipeline.

Request delegates are used to build the request pipeline. The request delegates handle each HTTP request.

Request delegates are configured using Run, Map, and Use extension methods. An individual request delegate can be specified in-line as an anonymous method (called in-line middleware), or it can be defined in a reusable class. These reusable classes and in-line anonymous methods are middleware, also called middleware components. Each middleware component in the request pipeline is responsible for invoking the next component in the pipeline or short-circuiting the pipeline. When a middleware short-circuits, it's called a terminal middleware because it prevents further middleware from processing the request.

Create a middleware pipeline with IApplicationBuilder

The ASP.NET Core request pipeline consists of a sequence of request delegates, called one after the other. The following diagram demonstrates the concept. The thread of execution follows the black arrows.

Each delegate can perform operations before and after the next delegate. Exception-handling delegates should be called early in the pipeline, so they can catch exceptions that occur in later stages of the pipeline.

The simplest possible ASP.NET Core app sets up a single request delegate that handles all requests. This case doesn't include an actual request pipeline. Instead, a single anonymous function is called in response to every HTTP request.

Chain multiple request delegates together with Use. The next parameter represents the next delegate in the pipeline. You can short-circuit the pipeline by not calling the next parameter. You can typically perform actions both before and after the next delegate, as the following example demonstrates:

public class Startup
{
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
{
app.Use(async (context, next) =>
{
// Do work that doesn't write to the Response.
await next.Invoke();
// Do logging or other work that doesn't write to the Response.
});
app.Run(async context =>
{
await context.Response.WriteAsync("Hello from 2nd delegate.");
});
}
}

When a delegate doesn't pass a request to the next delegate, it's called short-circuiting the request pipeline. Short-circuiting is often desirable because it avoids unnecessary work. For example, Static File Middleware can act as a terminal middleware by processing a request for a static file and short-circuiting the rest of the pipeline. Middleware added to the pipeline before the middleware that terminates further processing still processes code after their next.Invoke statements. However, see the following warning about attempting to write to a response that has already been sent.

Warning

Don't call next.Invoke after the response has been sent to the client. Changes to HttpResponse after the response has started throw an exception. For example, changes such as setting headers and a status code throw an exception. Writing to the response body after calling next:

May cause a protocol violation. For example, writing more than the stated Content-Length.

May corrupt the body format. For example, writing an HTML footer to a CSS file.

HasStarted is a useful hint to indicate if headers have been sent or the body has been written to.

Order

The order that middleware components are added in the Startup.Configure method defines the order in which the middleware components are invoked on requests and the reverse order for the response. The order is critical for security, performance, and functionality.

The following Startup.Configure method adds middleware components for common app scenarios:

UseExceptionHandler is the first middleware component added to the pipeline. Therefore, the Exception Handler Middleware catches any exceptions that occur in later calls.

Static File Middleware is called early in the pipeline so that it can handle requests and short-circuit without going through the remaining components. The Static File Middleware provides no authorization checks. Any files served by Static File Middleware, including those under wwwroot, are publicly available. For an approach to secure static files, see Static files in ASP.NET Core.

The following example demonstrates a middleware order where requests for static files are handled by Static File Middleware before Response Compression Middleware. Static files aren't compressed with this middleware order. The Razor Pages responses can be compressed.

UseExceptionHandler is the first middleware component added to the pipeline. Therefore, the Exception Handler Middleware catches any exceptions that occur in later calls.

Static File Middleware is called early in the pipeline so that it can handle requests and short-circuit without going through the remaining components. The Static File Middleware provides no authorization checks. Any files served by Static File Middleware, including those under wwwroot, are publicly available. For an approach to secure static files, see Static files in ASP.NET Core.

The following example demonstrates a middleware order where requests for static files are handled by Static File Middleware before Response Compression Middleware. Static files aren't compressed with this middleware order. The MVC responses from UseMvcWithDefaultRoute can be compressed.

Use, Run, and Map

Configure the HTTP pipeline using Use, Run, and Map. The Use method can short-circuit the pipeline (that is, if it doesn't call a next request delegate). Run is a convention, and some middleware components may expose Run[Middleware] methods that run at the end of the pipeline.

Map extensions are used as a convention for branching the pipeline. Map branches the request pipeline based on matches of the given request path. If the request path starts with the given path, the branch is executed.

The following table shows the requests and responses from http://localhost:1234 using the previous code.

Request

Response

localhost:1234

Hello from non-Map delegate.

localhost:1234/map1

Map Test 1

localhost:1234/map2

Map Test 2

localhost:1234/map3

Hello from non-Map delegate.

When Map is used, the matched path segments are removed from HttpRequest.Path and appended to HttpRequest.PathBase for each request.

MapWhen branches the request pipeline based on the result of the given predicate. Any predicate of type Func<HttpContext, bool> can be used to map requests to a new branch of the pipeline. In the following example, a predicate is used to detect the presence of a query string variable branch:

Built-in middleware

ASP.NET Core ships with the following middleware components. The Order column provides notes on middleware placement in the request processing pipeline and under what conditions the middleware may terminate request processing. When a middleware short-circuits the request processing pipeline and prevents further downstream middleware from processing a request, it's called a terminal middleware. For more information on short-circuiting, see the Create a middleware pipeline with IApplicationBuilder section.